Pain Pathways and Potential New Targets for Pain Relief

Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience that affects a sizable percentage of people on a daily basis. Sensory neurons known as nociceptors built specifically to detect damaging stimuli can be found throughout the body. They transmit information about noxious stimuli from mechanical, thermal, and chemical sources to the central nervous system and higher brain centers via electrical signals. Nociceptors express various channels and receptors such as voltage-gated sodium and calcium channels, transient receptor potential channels, and opioid receptors that allow them to respond in a highly specific manner to noxious stimuli. Attenuating the pain response can be achieved by inhibiting or altering the expression of these pain targets. Achieving a deeper understanding of how these receptors can be affected at the molecular level can lead to the development of novel pain therapies. This review will discuss the mechanisms of pain, introduce the various receptors that are responsible for detecting pain, and future directions in pharmacological therapies.